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A millennial truck driver who works 14-hour days, six days a week and already owns his own home has delivered a brutal wake-up call to wannabe homeowners, warning young people they have to work for it.
NSW man Josh, 33, was recently able to buy an investment home in Adelaide using a self-managed super fund and his annual truck driving salary of $200,000.
At the age of 24, he built a home in Narellan, about 60km southwest of Sydney, which he plans to sell before retiring in the state’s regions before he turns 40.
Josh had just one semester left in his economics degree when he decided to quit studying and leave his office job as an accountant to find a way to ‘make money faster’.
He worked in retail management for several years and received up to four promotions in the role before deciding management was ‘soul-sucking’.
Josh received a tough reality check when he and his partner at the time broke up shortly after purchasing the Narellan home, leaving him to tackle the mortgage alone.
Friends recommended he start driving trucks, a job which offered good money and the opportunity for Josh to work alone and on his own terms.
But before this, Josh was forced to work three jobs in order to pay his mortgage and he warned that making and saving money wasn’t always going to be ‘comfortable’.
‘I went from studying finance to driving a truck,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I would once have thought this kind of job was beneath me. You’re not always going to be comfortable, I had to leave my comfort zone to make money.’
NSW man Josh, 33, was recently able to buy an investment home in Adelaide using a self-managed super fund and his annual truck driving salary of $200,000
A millennial truck driver who works 14-hour days, six days a week and already owns his own home has delivered a brutal wake-up call to wannabe homeowners, saying if young people want a home they have to be prepared to work for it
Josh describes a chaotic month where he was packing and operating machinery in a warehouse as well as working ‘random jobs’ offered by agencies.
One day he worked 30 hours straight in order to keep his new house.
Josh believes it comes down to whether Millennials want a home and financial security or to go on holidays and enjoy a better work/life balance.
Whatever the goal, he recommends spending a considerable amount of time coming up with a realistic budget that takes every daily cost into consideration.
Josh, who is now married, was forced to make adjustments to his work/life balance after his long hours started causing problems in his relationship.
‘I would work six days a week from 5.30am in the morning to 6pm at night all to have a nice day out shopping and buying designer things,’ he said.
‘A few weeks of overtime was spent on a handbag. But we (he and his wife) were still going to miss each other and get grumpy because we weren’t seeing each other.
‘So we communicated about what we want from life and from each other.’
Josh currently works up to 60 to 70 hours, six days a week but plans to drop down to 40 to 50 hours over three to four days a week.
This week, Josh and his new girlfriend settled on buying a new home in regional NSW. They hope to move in to next month and eventually retire in a few years.
The couple have plans to spend some time working and travelling before pursuing Josh’s dreams of growing his own fruit and vegetables and brewing beer.
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‘I should realistically be able to pull the plug in a few years,’ he said.
University of Sydney economist Gareth Bryant said the struggle of buying a house was not a Boomers versus Millennials issue.
He says it came down to housing wealth – whether they already own property.
Mr Bryant told Daily Mail Australia that even if young people work an extra job or two and spend less frugally it’s still almost impossible to save for a meaningful deposit.
The lucky Millennials are those who got into the property market early and have reaped significant rewards or they are from a family that owns property.
Josh currently works up to 60 to 70 hours, six days a week driving trucks but plans to drop down to 40 to 50 hours over three to four days a week (stock image)
Gareth said the majority of young people who buy a home in Australia’s competitive housing markets did so with the help of the ‘bank of mum and dad’.
As a result of this, Australia has some of the world’s most unequal income to wealth ratios.
‘Historically the pathway to buying a house was to get a job, save money, buy the house and pay it off when your retired,’ Mr Bryant said.
‘House prices are so much higher than incomes now. Homes used to cost up to two to three times more than the average income, now it’s seven to 10 times more.
‘If you look at Boomers, two-thirds had bought a house by their early 30s but now, less than 50 per cent of Millennials can afford a house at the same age.’
Mr Bryant said levels of home ownership would continue to decline.
‘House prices are going up and people’s jobs are increasingly insecure,’ he said.
‘People are coming up with ways to bring their inheritance forward through gifts of money and parents being guarantors on their children’s home loans.
‘It’s a lottery. Some people have that housing wealth and others don’t but it’s not just a generational story of Millennials vs Boomers.’
Gareth Bryant, an economist who has done research for Sydney University, says the struggle of buying a house is not a Boomers vs Millennials issue
Back in 1984, Sydney’s median house price was $85,900 and the average, full-time salary was $19,656. With a 20 per cent mortgage deposit, that meant the typical, single borrower would have had a debt-to-income ratio of 3.5.
In 2023, Sydney’s median house price is $1.334million and someone with an average, full-time salary of $95,581 would have a dangerous debt-to-income ratio of 11.2 even with a mortgage deposit.
That is well above the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s ‘six’ threshold for mortgage stress.
Sydney property prices are so dear a Mount Druitt house, 50km west of the city, typically costs $819,589, CoreLogic data for July showed, and a borrower on an average salary would be in mortgage stress paying it off.
A record 387,000 migrants moved to Australia in 2022 and house prices last month rose again in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide even though the Reserve Bank has raised interest rates 12 times since May 2022.
Outgoing Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe this month noted the 1.5 per cent increase in new housing was lagging behind Australia’s 2 per cent population growth pace, among the highest in the developed world.
